


5 Times Claire Got Left Behind, And 1 Time Alice Held Tight

by Taste_of_Suburbia



Category: Resident Evil (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Constipation, F/F, Falling In Love, Family, Fandom Stocking 2017, Fix-It, Fluff, Friendship, Mutual Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-22 20:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13174956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia
Summary: Alice and Claire, the two who defy all odds and always find each other, no matter how far.





	5 Times Claire Got Left Behind, And 1 Time Alice Held Tight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiddencait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/gifts).



> Written for hiddencait for Fandom Stocking. Happy 2018!
> 
> Final Chapter fix-It fic, though really a fix-it fic for the whole series, since these two _should have_ ended up together.
> 
>  **Soundtrack:** The Gathering’s “My Electricity”

 

* * *

_~I send your name_

_Up into the sky_

_And the wind blows it back into my face~_

* * *

 

  1. **_Peaches and Company_**



The day is fading fast. Tomorrow they’ll be on the road, pushing towards Alaska. Alice thinks about all she’s lost and all that she knows she has left to do.

Lost in her thoughts, Claire suddenly sits down beside her, an unlabeled tin can passing back and forth between her hands nervously. Alice glances over at her briefly, to acknowledge that she is more than welcome, that she can’t afford company but that doesn’t mean she can’t want it even more than this world sometimes. Claire doesn’t return her look and Alice wonders, wonders about how she got here and at the pain and loss etched deep into her heart, surely echoing Alice’s own.

“Wanna take bets on what’s inside this?”

A long pause, a quirk of Alice’s mouth relaying a smile. Claire doesn’t see it, chuckles at the ridiculousness of her comment. Alice allows potential answers to roll lazily through her mind, but Claire doesn’t stretch the silence, perhaps believing it to be uncomfortable when it is nothing but soothing and even familiar for Alice, or at least something she craves to be made familiar.

Claire’s head dips as she stares down at the can, stark red hair obscuring Alice’s once unfettered view of her. “Maybe it’s peaches.” Another long pause and then Claire pushes herself forward, eyes gazing deeply out at the horizon. “Yeah, I’ll go with that.”

She looks over at Alice then, eyes big and open and beautiful. Alice is surprised at how open they are, almost as if there are no secrets Claire _wouldn_ _’t_ tell her if she were only to ask.

“I trust your instinct,” Alice replies, and Claire doesn’t just smile but _glows_ as if Alice has just promised her a perfect, golden world.

She may just be the last thing Alice fights for.

Alice takes the can from her and studies it, but she is really studying Claire more, out of the corner of her eye. Carefully. Stealthily. With a curiousness bordering on hunger.

What Alice didn’t realize at first is that Claire isn’t here only to share her food, but her company more than anything else. Alice feels warmth at that, warmth she hasn’t felt in so _long._ Warmth she never thought she’d feel again.

“You should eat.” Claire nudges the can Alice now has her own hand wrapped around. She imagines that it’s Claire hand she is holding instead, knows that it won’t be so until this world is put back together piece by piece, until _she_ does this, if she really does have the will for it. “Keep up your strength.”

Alice searches her eyes then, _really_ searches them, and is shocked to see longing. This woman that Alice doesn’t even know is bold enough to let Alice see _all_ of it, to not pull back in shame, and suddenly it’s Alice who is ashamed, for almost not seeing it at all.

Words form, swell in her throat until she almost can’t breathe from the urgency of them, but she is ashamed of these words too. She knows she must push Claire away, neither of them have time for distractions, but how cruel would she be in admitting that?

And Claire is beautiful, without a doubt. She is strong and fierce and loyal and a _protector_ , just like Alice. They are two women trying to protect a world that Umbrella keeps ripping out of their bloodied and calloused hands with every action.

How deep must the pain run, for Claire to reach out to Alice almost as if in darkness: blindly, almost in panic, with willful optimism?

How deep must Alice’s own pain run, to suddenly want every ounce of what Claire Redfield’s offering and _more._ To want to sink her teeth into that soft skin, claiming her, what she has no right to claim. To want to hold her and breathe her in and protect just _one last thing_. But she doesn’t have enough hands to hold her, and she fears her strength will give out before the end anyway.

Is this just the world’s cruel joke? Give Alice someone else she will surely _lose_.

But she can give something else: she pushes the can back into Claire’s hand. “Take this. Save it for a rainy day.”

The hurt in Claire’s eyes is almost too much to bear: rejection. It is all Alice can offer her now, in a world where nothing is safe and there is no time for even small moments such as these.

“Because the rain will come, right?” Claire’s sharp voice wrenches Alice’s heart out of her chest, her boots stomping on it as she stands up, spraying sand as she paces in place. Alice can see her fingernails dig so sharply into the can, about to draw blood.

And Alice wants to tell her then: _how could you ever think that I could reject you? I_ _’m just as needy as you are, I need your trust and your strength and your quiet, brimming love even more than you need mine._

Then again, Claire doesn’t know her.

Oh, how Alice needs her to.

* * *

 

  1. **_First Goodbye and a Fast Ride_**



There are so many words unsaid. Alice can read the grief in Claire’s eyes, even though they know so little about each other, even though there is so much that they haven’t yet disclosed or experienced together.

Already Alice is pushing her away, already Claire fights against understanding even though she does.

Already Alice is _failing her._

Because it isn’t Alice getting left behind, it’s Alice letting Claire go and giving her away to the wind, to a world she can no longer trust, to blind hope. It’s Claire getting left behind, being rejected again, because Alice can’t ask her to stay and fight her battle.

Because Alice loves her too much to lose her in that way.

The _chop chop chop_ of the helicopter echoes exactly her heart being chopped into pieces, even knowing she has made the only choice she could. Surrendering Claire to the world has given her the clarity to fulfill her purpose.

Still, she will never forgive herself, and the relief she feels years later at finding Claire again, despite a shell lashing out at her and not the proud fighter she left behind, will forever remain unspoken.

That relief is just too powerful to release upon the world quite yet.

 

* * *

  _~You see, even nature reacts on me_

_And all my electricity_

_Will make it across your sea~_

* * *

 

  1. **_Once is Forever_**



Claire enters the shower just as Alice is finishing up, tying a faded towel around her waist, hair falling into her face and partly obscuring her vision when she glances up upon hearing footsteps.

“Oh! I’m sorry….” The redhead immediately retreats, tucking her head down and away, yet still she rests partially against the tile wall, back facing Alice. _Waiting._

“You’re fine,” Alice reassures this skittish woman. If only Claire had stepped in a minute or so earlier; not that Alice would have taken advantage of the things she could not remember. Or rather, the promises Alice had never made her in the first place, but the ones she hoped Claire once knew she would someday fulfill. “I was just finishing up here.” She grabs her gun and walks toward Claire, making sure to give her enough room should she need it.

Claire doesn’t. She pushes herself closer, inch by inch, discreetly. Alice remembers she was too proud to hide herself before, but Claire no longer exudes that pride and confidence, at least when it comes to Alice. It’s sweet and beautiful and Alice loves her all the more, loves all that Claire was when she met her and all that she has become since Alice abandoned her, even with the loss of her memories serving as a brutal disadvantage.

Alice smiles at her as she continues walking, and she _almost_ stops when it’s clear that Claire is following her. “Stay. I mean… I don’t…,” Claire chuckles and Alice can almost hear her cursing herself. Neither of them can afford the simple act of _need_ in this world, yet Alice is so at the brink of giving it, even though Claire isn’t herself and shouldn’t know that they have something unspoken and yet still somehow knows and has that same look of longing and desperation as when she handed Alice that can of peaches.

And Alice can hear the unspoken plea: _I want you to see me, I want to remember you._

And Alice’s answer: _I_ want _you to remember me._

Claire’s hand clenches, so close to Alice’s own. A dozen emotions flicker across her face and Alice peers closer, even knowing she shouldn’t. “You don’t have to leave,” Claire finishes, voice less shaky than before. “I feel safer when you’re around. Like more of myself. Like… maybe it’s coming back.”

What shocks Alice the most is not what she says but how _sure_ she is, as if she could know Alice feels the same way.

Because the thing is, it’s not Alice against the world, the world that Umbrella created out of greed and corruption and malice. It’s Alice _and_ Claire against the world.

There is no going forward anymore without the other.

“Alright,” Alice gives. It is not enough, not after all that Claire has given her and - Alice has a feeling - has yet to give her, but it is a few small moments of comfort that just might feel like an eternity to Claire.

Alice politely averts her eyes the moment Claire begins to undress, even though she knows Claire craves her gaze, needs it as an anchor and as a reminder. A reminder that they are friends, _family_ even, and that their trust runs deeper even than simple love. They _know_ each other, read each other easily, even now.

It’s unexplainable, but in a world where nothing makes sense beyond killing and pushing your body ever forward past its limits, it’s really the only thing that does make sense, the only thing that Alice needs, something she hasn’t even claimed yet.

That is why she claims Claire Redfield then, in a split second of certainty, with every inch of her gaze.

She remembers just _enough_ of Alice for it to mean _everything_ to the both of them.

Even admiring the view before her, Alice laments at having never _once_ brushed her fingers through that red hair, never holding Claire in her arms. She doesn’t know the weight of her, hasn’t memorized the sound of her breathing as she rests, protected under Alice’s watchful gaze. She _almost_ knows from when she tied Claire up when she found her again, when the world reunited them and for whatever reasons she couldn’t endure it mattering, but Claire was too self-conscious and too jumpy and mistrustful. It was the only time she gave Alice absolutely _nothing_ but her simply being there and alive.

And _still,_ Alice had to pull away, like every time before.

“You asked if you were a good person. You were. You are,” Alice corrects, with emphasis.

Claire tilts her head but it is not enough; Alice can give her more than this.

“I loved you once.” Alice blurts out, and she doesn’t quite expect Claire to answer but she does, so soft Alice almost can’t make her out, so regretful that Alice wishes she would just remember, to spare her the pain of all the empty, bleeding gaps.

“Do you still?” Not a ‘Did I Love You?’ Claire already knows that answer, after all.

Alice forces herself to turn away. _No matter where you go, no matter what you become, I will_ always _love you._

* * *

 

  1. **_Falling_**



It is _not enough_ that she tries, that she struggles to keep sight of her, red hair whipping around her face like a bloodied halo as she fights a useless battle. She is _always_ the one Alice can spot, a shared look the push that Alice needs to carry on.

It is _too much_ that she sinks and sinks and she is no longer within sight. No amount of hoping will bring Claire down here, where the water presses down on her, eager to claim her as if the vast ocean itself is one of Umbrella’s hundreds of henchmen.

It is not enough that Alice tries, so hard, to not let Claire slip out of her tight hold _time after time_.

But Claire herself is like the ocean, slipping through Alice’s fingers despite her grasping for purchase and running out of air.

She can’t let them take Claire again; she has to resurface somehow has to get her limbs to work has to clear her head has to…

Soft, slim fingers… deep, open and trusting eyes… hair a bloodied halo obscuring Alice’s faltering vision…

The darkness is unforgiving.

 

* * *

  _~With every wave the sea makes_

_My body gets weaker_

_And weaker and weaker~_

* * *

 

  1. **_Finish Line_**



“Claire.”

In her eyes, Alice can already see how this will play out. “Go. While there’s still time,” Claire pleads. She expects Alice to put her last, as she always does. 

 _Claire, no. NO._ She pours forth every ounce of stubbornness through her gaze, the desperation that Claire will _insist_ on Alice waiting for her just this _once_ , but here Claire is: the last person alive, the last one to push her ever-forward.

“Go. I’ll be right behind you,” Claire insists. “ _Finish_ it.”

And Alice knows she must, she must put this world back together so Claire can stop fighting and start living. This last and only gift she will give to Claire, even if it will send her to where Claire can’t follow.

Alice doesn’t tell Claire that she will find her, no matter where the antivirus takes her, that she will wait and wait and wait until they finally have their moment, but they’ve always been able to read each other’s gazes and postures well enough.

That is their strength and their _love._

The last thing she sees is Claire, not slumped in pained defeat but in the quiet agony of resignation.

And Alice shouldn’t ask her to keep giving, as she always has, but she does.

She does and she doesn’t look back.

 

* * *

  _~You see, even nature reacts on me_

_And all my electricity_

_Will make it across your sea_

_And provides you_

_With my love~_

* * *

 

  1. **_Revelations and Promises (And what happened to that can of peaches)_**



There are no words to describe how it feels to be at the end of the road: triumphant though bloodied and exhausted.

With Claire Redfield.

Standing in front of one another, there are too many things to say. Their lungs breathe clean air, fingers flex as if trying out the shape of this new world, and yet their mouths are so parched, eyes still adjusting. Their words have always been short, direct, even clipped. They had no time for filler or reassurances or meaningless words that went nowhere.

They have given up _everything_ to get here.

And now when everything can be said, it is no longer enough. These words die as soon as they reach Alice’s lips, hands trembling because all this time she has not touched Claire with longing or dried her helpless tears or squeezed her hand before the fear and hopelessness could carve out too much of her. She has denied herself and in so doing has forced Claire to mimic her actions, painfully, never pushing Alice or putting her on the spot. She has waited all this time for Alice to take that first step, but doesn’t she understand? Alice _can_ _’t_.

She has been pushed too far and too hard. Claire must give her this one last thing, must carry them both now so Alice can _heal_.

Doesn’t Claire understand that after all this time, the moment she touches Claire she will break and then be put back together again? How many times must she endure this?

“We made it, Alice.” Claire smiles, reassuring, and Alice wants to hug her and make this world better immediately, for _her_.

There is _so_ much work left to be done it is _daunting._

They sit by the fire and warm themselves, Alice paying particular attention to her fingers, and even though there is nothing pressing to be done she can’t stop the itch, deep down inside her. The itch for what?

She looks across the fire at Claire, red hair swaying gently in the breeze, gazing into the fire serenely. What are the odds that she is still here and no one else is? What are the odds that they are _both_ here?

Was Claire really a gift to her? Her _reward?_

She tries not to spend too much time on her new childhood memories; she wants to make new memories with Claire, ones that piece by piece will help stitch up the hurt and the longing.

Then again, she is just _too_ used to the very basics of survival. “Do we have anything left to eat?”

Claire breaks out of her trance - it is almost like glass shattering - and rummages through her backpack. “A few cans, some packets of crackers, not much really.”

Alice nods and Claire moves closer, taking that as enough of a go-ahead. They sit side-by-side, shoulders brushing, passing one can of beans back and forth. Alice closes her eyes and breathes in the smoke and the moment, mostly the latter. It’s Claire who starts the small talk, and gratefully Alice lets her finish the last quarter of what the can offers.

“I remember when Carlos used to fight me for cans of carrots. He always seemed to know when I was holding out on him, but that was the fun of it, I guess. I could have done without them myself, but the look on his face when he tried to read me,” Claire laughs, a laugh that echoes and that Alice wraps around her like a blanket. “I miss that, fighting over cans, the kids always begging me for soup….”

Immediately Alice knows how far she’s gone, and she wraps an arm around Claire’s shoulders without thought. Her smile surprises Alice. “It’s enough that I have you. We’ve lost so many and I will _never_ forget them, but I’m happy I have you, Alice. I never thanked you for sticking by me when I couldn’t remember. You could have just left me out there, you didn’t owe me anything.”

Alice shakes her head; this is one of the only things she’s ever been certain of. “I owed you _everything_ , Claire. I would have done anything to get back to you. Even when you couldn’t remember, you still _knew_ me. You were still Claire.”

Claire laughs again, though this time it’s more like a sob, a desperate sob. “Why did we never say anything? Why did we always hold back?”

“We had to, there was too much at stake. But it _is_ my fault, I never told you how I felt.”

Claire breaks out of her hold and turns on Alice, unbridled venom and _frustration_ in her gaze. “I knew. Goddamn you, Alice. I _knew._ Every day that went by, every day I thought I’d never see you again killed me inside, but then I remembered how many times you had my back even when there was no point, how many times you came back for me, and I had _just_ that inkling of hope that I’d see you again. Doc was just a replacement for the real thing. _You_ are the real thing, Alice. The first second I saw you, you drew me in. You drew everyone in. I just… I didn’t think you were ever going to tell me the truth.”

Alice breathes in deeply, tears making their way to her sore eyes. “I just kept putting it off and it wasn’t fair to you. I _always_ wanted you, Claire. I was always fighting my way back to you.”

“You know what’s the funniest thing of all?” Claire asks. “It’s stupid, really. After Arcadia… I still had that can. It was my own way of remembering you, you know? Carrying a piece of you around with me.” Alice smiles, nods, pushing Claire gently forward. “I kept that damn can of peaches for so long, until finally I opened it and you know what? Green beans!”

Alice keels over in laughter, picturing the look of disgust on Claire’s face, the fullness of Claire’s stomach once she had finished the can. She envisions how it kept her going, pushed her on so they could find each other again.

“Still,” Alice smiles, voice rough as she recovers from that harsh bout of laughter, “there must have been _something_ in those green beans.” It’s then that Alice makes her first _spoken_ promise: “I promise you that the first can of peaches I find will be yours.”

“I’m holding you to that promise, Alice.” _Every_ promise, Alice knows, even the ones she will never speak, the ones she never _has to speak._

There’s something in the way Claire says her name that makes her feel full and complete inside; Alice knows that feeling is here to stay. She knows they will fix this planet together, the way it was always meant to be. Finally, step by gentle step, she takes Claire into her arms and breathes in her soft hair and smiles.

Whole. Finally _whole._

My love.

**FIN**


End file.
